


UNKNOWN

by hansolo945



Category: Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 06:15:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8521618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hansolo945/pseuds/hansolo945
Summary: We (including Tony) meet Howie Stark.





	1. Chapter 1

The long black car slid to a stop at the curb. The crowds that had drawn for this car’s arrival stirred – not quite erupting – and pushed closer together, closer towards the car. Nothing happened to the car for a few moments. 

Emma Morley pulled the three children in her keep closer to her. Her hands gripped tighter the thin shoulders of her own two children, and her young nephew, trapped between and slightly behind the two older kids, was pulled back with them. Emma could feel his small feet dancing lightly; she could tell he was as excited as all the other children here, and that he was also trying not to step on her feet in his careful way.

The door of the limousine opened and out stepped its passenger. 

The crowds erupted then, held back by barriers, police officers, and bodyguards. Most of it was excitement, but Emma could sense hostility from a few in the crowd, as well. She could empathize with that hostility better than most.

Emma could not look at the man for more than a second. She could not bear it. She looked down instead at the small heads of her children and her nephew. Two golden-haired children – her own – and the smallest dark-haired. Her sister’s. His curls glinted and bounced in the sunlight. It was warm, and the kids were all wearing short sleeves. Her nephew was gripping his cousins’ arms, all three of them vibrating with exhilaration. Emma could see the obvious difference in the skin tones of her children to her sister’s son. He was much tanner, naturally. Olive-skinned to her children’s fair tones.

He looked up at her then, like he knew she was thinking about him, his dark eyes sparkling in the sunshine and in the excitement of the day. His dimple was showing as he smiled and laughed with his cousins, all three of them hopping up and down and shouting along with the crowd. His look was different than other children’s though – it saw… more. It was calculating. He was gauging her reaction, hoping for as much enthusiasm as the rest of them. She could do nothing more than smile faintly at him. His face fell a little, making her heart skip a beat. Strangely, he was so easily disappointed in himself, so fast to assume the blame for something that wasn’t his fault. He was a martyr, even at his young age. He looked back at the focus of everyone’s attention, but Emma continued to stare at the top of his head, like she was trying to count his soft curls.

In her periphery, Emma could see the man from the limo drawing closer. He wasn’t coming toward them, just moving down the line. Through the crowds on the sidewalk, heading into some government building.

Emma kept her head down. She didn’t want him to see her face, didn’t want to see his. She knew it well, though. It was the face of her nephew. Unbeknownst to both of them, father and son in the same vicinity, closer than they’d ever been before. She had visions, daydreams really, of him picking them out of the crowd, recognizing his former lover’s face in hers – her sister’s. Finding her with two children so clearly her own and one so obviously belonging to him. What would he do? What would he say? How would he feel?

But he didn’t recognize anyone. Or at least he didn’t show that he recognized anyone. He didn’t stop, not really. He took some photos, signed some autographs, but he didn’t touch anyone. No hugs, no handshakes. Emma remembered her sister saying he was peculiar like that. Didn’t like to be touched. And he kept moving until he reached the entrance to whatever important building important men like him entered and he turned and waved to the crowd, flashing his peace sign. 

Emma’s nephew – Tony Stark’s son – peaced him back, desperate, like all the other children and many of the adults, for the attention of the Invincible Iron Man. 


	2. Chapter 2

“Restrooms? Restroom?” Tony questioned everyone in the lobby. A young woman met his eyes and blushed. Her mouth curled into a coy smile and her eyelashes fluttered. She pointed down a corridor to the West. Tony mumbled his thanks and headed off that way. 

The young woman watched him go, a tad disappointed. Tony Stark disappeared into the men’s room. 

He was getting worse about the touching thing. All his life he could remember being particular about it, and then Afghanistan had worsened it tenfold. But then it had gotten better. Everything had gotten better, with Pepper. His obsessive-compulsiveness, the touching, the handing – everything. All of his bad habits and peculiarities had improved with her touch, her presence. Even for a while after they had ended things, he was still better than he’d been before. But now… It was worse. Much worse. 

Tony caught his own reflection in the mirror and held his own gaze for a moment, staring into the brown of his eyes – his father’s eyes – asking himself, what’s wrong with you? His stare lent no answer. He looked at himself; he was thinner, losing weight, making his face more gaunt and angular, older-looking than he really was. The deep circles didn’t help, either, and the tiny wrinkles around his eyes gave away just how much he was squinting these days.

He pulled his eyes from the mirror and focused on his hands. Two new, small cuts on his already callused and worn hands were bleeding again, broken open either by the fervent washing or by the clenching of fists on the way over. He let the cool water run over them; he didn’t even notice the sting of these small cuts anymore. 

After he’d lathered and scrubbed and rinsed twice, Tony dried his hands and pushed the large door open with his foot. Back in the great corridor, he glanced to the left where a small party was waiting, presumably for him. He stared for a moment. None of them were looking his way. To his right he could see the glow of the warm afternoon sunshine. Double-checking that no one was seeing him deliberate, Tony took off toward the right. Down the hall towards the sun. 

For all the time he’d spent in Washington, DC over the years, Tony had never really gotten to know his way around the city. He wasn’t that familiar with the names of buildings – he just went where he was told to go or driven. He wandered around the side of the large building he’d just escaped from, admiring its size and grand architecture. In the near distance he could see the Smithsonian Castle. He hadn’t been to any of the Smithsonian museums in quite a long time, not since he was a child. 

He paused in the midst of looking around again for someone who might be coming after him, realizing he might look a little paranoid to the other passerbys with his frequent scanning. He slid a pair of sunglasses on and took off his suit jacket, slinging it over his arm as he walked towards the Smithsonian. 

The large grassy area the Smithsonian museums surrounded was busy, full of running children and people laughing and talking, all enjoying the pleasant summer day. Tony was aiming for the Air and Space Museum, but as he was passing the American History Museum his own face caught his eye and made him halt in the middle of the sidewalk. It was a piece of a photo he hated – a picture taken at his parents’ funeral that had turned into a Time Magazine Photo of the Year. His younger face was distorted, from the quality of the photograph and that it had been blown up to fit on a banner, and the fact that he was crying in the picture. 

Tony’s mind jerked back into the present from the initial shock of seeing this version of himself, forcing him to see the banner as a whole. It was an advertisement for an exhibit. He could see the same image replicated on banners that lined the sidewalk along the length of the museum’s facade. A collection of Time’s Photographs of the Year. Stiffly, he started into the museum. He got a few looks on his way in. He ignored as many from the adults as he could, and forced himself to smile at as many of the children as he could. His publicist – well, the publicist for Stark Industries – had been on his ass lately about his public image. She had called him a ‘hermit’ and berated him that his brooding was far from appropriate for a “superhero”. Mostly he had ignored her, her nagging was nowhere near as fun as Pepper’s had been. But the thing about kids she’d said – he didn’t remember exactly – that had stuck with him. And so he smiled at the kids. 

It was easy enough to find the Time exhibit. Large red arrows and banners directed him straight there. Luckily, the room was not very crowded. Tony meandered along the years, not really seeing any of the other photos, instead just dreading reaching 1991. When he did, it was worse than the banner outside. It wasn’t huge, but big enough. Bigger than he’d ever seen it in full. In fact, Tony couldn’t remember ever really looking at the damned thing. It had been an insult that Obadiah and Bruce and everyone had compelled him to ignore when it had first surfaced. He had been too fucked up to be as infuriated as Obie and everyone else had been that there were paparazzi willing to trespass on Howard and Maria Stark’s funeral and then take photos of their grieving son. 

He stared at the photograph. It was a very strange sensation, to see his face on that day. He remembered it well enough, but he didn’t remember crying, though he must have been. Obviously he had been – there was photographic evidence right in front of him. He studied his younger self. The photo was in color here, and Tony could see the waxy color of his face. He had been drinking, he knew, he had been since the day he’d been told his parents were dead. 

His thoughts darkened as he thought of their deaths. He stared, unblinking, at the photograph as he thought of the fateful day when he’d finally learned the truth of how his parents died. Of how Steve had defended James Barnes, how he had known, and yet he hadn’t told Tony. Any way would have been better than the way he’d found out, Tony had told himself over the years. 

All of the sudden, a large group entered the room, talking loudly. Tony ducked his head and managed to escape the exhibit without being seen, or at least recognized. He wandered through a couple of other exhibits, barely seeing anything, and avoiding any rooms with more than a few people in them if he could. He was still lost in his own thoughts, and would have eventually found his way out of the museum if he weren’t distracted when he passed what at first looked to be a mirror in his periphery. At second glance however, he realized it was actually a life-sized image of his father. 

Tony took a step back. He was at an entrance to an exhibit titled Modern Marvels: Engineers, Scientists, and Geniuses Who Have Shaped our Modern World. Howard was arm in arm with Hank Pym. Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Thomas Edison – Tony shook his head as he looked down the line of images outside the exhibit. “Howard, you’d shit yourself,” he muttered. He took a deep breath and one last look at his father before pulling the glass door open and going inside.


	3. Chapter 3

Virginia “Pepper” Potts ignored the appreciative looks she was getting from the Wall Street types and senator-wannabes and actual senators as she strode out of the Warner building and started heading towards the Smithsonian. Her skirt was knee-length, but it was riding up above her knee due to her speed, and she had removed her suit jacket when her meeting had ended. She double-checked her sister’s last message to her, detailing where she and the kids were waiting. The American History museum. Some Disney animation exhibit Claire and Carmichael had wanted to see. Pepper knew Howie would be bored out of his mind by the time she got there, if he hadn’t already wandered off. 

Her phone buzzed. Hurry, read the message from Emma. She smiled and turned her sound up. It dinged again. He won’t let me carry him. Pepper’s smile faded a little and her paced quickened. She knew what was coming next. 

It didn’t take three minutes for her sister to text her again. He’s gone. Security knows. 

Pepper sighed heavily, but the museum was within sight, and she knew he wouldn’t leave the building when he knew she was on her way to him. 

As she was crossing the street, she saw several black, unmarked SUVs – presumably security or police vehicles – parked along the block. A small unit of men in black suits were convened at one of the corners, talking to a man who looked like a secret serviceman. He made eye contact with Pepper, and nodded. They all seemed fairly calm to untrained eyes, but Pepper could see the tension in their stances. It worried her, but no one stopped her, and they weren’t standing outside the museum. Maybe it was the president. A hundred possibilities flashed through her mind, but she didn’t stop. 

She nearly ran up the stairs to the place, and flashed her badge at security. She texted Emma, I’m here. As Emma’s reply came through, Pepper smiled dryly: Oh, thank god. He went towards the engineering exhibit. 

“Of course,” she said under her breath. She made a left at the next hall. She and her sister frequented the American History Museum with their kids. Emma’s children really couldn’t care less about the Air and Space Museum after the first ten times they’d been there, but her Howie could probably spend a week in there just looking at one thing, and Howie wasn’t very tolerant of the kid-aimed museums. He tended to wander off. But the American History Museum had a pretty equal spread of things Howie could explore and Emma’s kids would like. Claire and Carmichael were eight and five to Howie’s almost two. They were great kids, but Howie’s intellect was striking. Considering who his father was, that was really no surprise, but still…

Pepper shook her head, and looked around, trying to distract herself from falling into that well of guilt – again. Not telling Tony about her pregnancy had been smart at the time, but by her eighth month, his little debacle with Rogers and the Avengers had ended and she should have told him. She still wasn’t sure what held her back. Maybe it was Howie’s stubbornness showing through early. Though, she had her own flight of stubborn when she needed it. But still, she hadn’t told him, instead going home to her mother, who had welcomed her back with open arms. 

She pulled the door to the engineering exhibit open. It had been around for a while, and at first she had been terrified when she’d seen Howard Stark. But Howie was more interested in the small, interactive, working models of the various inventions in the middle of the room than the inventors themselves. It was a large room, closed off only periodically by standing walls with facts about the inventors printed on them. She could see her son in the middle of the room, fussing with something. He was fine, the room was nearly empty and he was free to play to his heart’s delight. 

She perused the walls, reading through the Marie Curie wall with interest. They had added some stuff, she noticed, since the last time she’d been here. She wandered slowly throughout the room, reading and looking at the new pictures and clauses that had been added. She noticed a man crouched at the Hank Pym wall, reading thoroughly, but mostly Pepper was lost in her own reading. She took a silent breath and made her way over to Howard’s wall. Her breath caught in her throat – someone had found photos that had for so long eluded her. Photos from Tony’s childhood. 

He looked so much like Howie, sitting beside Howard at Stark Industries when he was five years old. He was missing a front tooth. He was in his mother’s lap, too preoccupied with some model car to look at the camera with his parents. The wall was arranged chronologically, and through the photos she watched Tony and his parents age. Tears came to her eyes as she read about Howard and Maria’s deaths, about Tony’s devastation. And then it detailed where Tony and Obadiah had taken the company, and her promotion to CEO, and it ended with the present. She’d resigned and Tony had taken back over and who knew what the future held. She used her collar to blot her eyes so the tears wouldn’t spill over. 

She heard a small sigh. The man who had been at the Hank Pym wall had made his way to the Howard wall. 

Pepper’s heart stopped as she turned to face him. It was Tony.


	4. Chapter 4

Tony bit his cheek as he moved on from Hank Pym’s part of the exhibit to his father’s. It started with his work prior to World War II. When he was a kid he was obsessed with his father’s stories about the war. It was still a bit of an abstract to think of Howard being old enough to have lived through WWII, though Tony knew he was only nineteen when he helped make Steve Rogers Captain America. Still, his father’s energy and vigor didn’t lend to the fact that he was close to seventy when he was killed.

He moved on, only reading when his interest was really piqued. After all, he’d lived this stuff. He mostly looked at the pictures. He wondered what archive the Smithsonian had managed to pry these out of. Some of them he’d never seen, others were vaguely familiar – magazine shoots he barely remembered, little things that were recognizable. Others he knew very well. The photo of him in his mother’s lap with the car, Howard laughing with a drink in his hand – he had that one in a frame… somewhere. It used to be in Obie’s office. 

For some reason, his parents’ wedding photo was on the wall. It made him sigh. Why?

The pair of heels he’d been only distantly aware of turned towards him. And stopped. He resisted the urge to look up for only a moment, and when he did…

It was Pepper. 

She was standing there with her mouth hanging open, staring at him in horror, and he could only imagine that his expression mirrored hers. He blinked, closing his mouth, continuing to stare at her. Drinking her in. She looked fantastic – still looked fantastic. Tall and beautiful. Her hair was long and she’d grown her bangs out, but she was wearing subtle makeup that really emphasized her eyes and high cheekbones. He remembered loving to watch her do that makeup. Hated to watch her cover up her freckles, but loved the outcome just as much as he loved the start. 

Unconsciously, he took a step toward her. 

“No,” she mouthed at him, her eyes flashing dangerously. 

He panicked. He stepped back, kept stepping towards the center of the room, hoping he was aiming for the door. He looked at her as long as she kept eye contact with him, and then when she closed her eyes he turned around, kept his gaze at his feet as the tears fell down his face.


	5. Chapter 5

Pepper watched him go, watched him fearfully, fearful that he would suddenly turn to his right and see Howie. Her Howie, who was standing on the other side of a model, just out of his view. She knew that if Howie moved, Tony would notice. And then know. 

And of course her beautiful son moved. The light of her life, how could he stop moving? He was always in motion, just like his father. If it wasn’t his body, it was his mind. Both. He moved, flitting from one model to another, and Tony lifted his head. 

Pepper watched, frozen to the floor, helpless as Tony stared, processing what he was seeing, the carbon copy of the small boy in the photos on the wall behind them. His mouth opened in a small “oh” and he froze too. Slowly he looked at her. His eyes were filled with betrayal, anger, sadness, shock. The tears on his cheeks made it ten times worse – a hundred, a thousand. Pepper nearly dropped to her knees right there. 

At the exact same time Howie said, “Mama?” the building rumbled. The floor vibrated and they could hear windows shattering. Pepper and Tony were both still frozen to their respective spots on the floor, but they both turned to look at Howie when he spoke. 

And then the ceiling came crashing in, separating Pepper from her son and former lover. The last thing she saw before the wall of the museum crashed down in front of her was Tony diving for Howie, prepared to curl himself around the boy.


	6. Chapter 6

Neither Tony nor Howie lost consciousness through the initial destruction. Tony scooped the boy – his son – out of the way just in time. He curled around him, holding his head to his throat, shielding him from the debris. He heard Pepper screaming, but she was screaming a name – two names. His, presumably, and the boy’s. He couldn’t make it out. Before he could shout out to her over the boy’s crying, the building shifted and creaked and he and the boy were falling down. He clutched his son to his chest and twisted in the air so that he landed on his back, protecting the child. He then rolled over onto his side, again protecting the boy from fall debris. He didn’t hear Pepper anymore, but he also didn’t hear the child’s crying, even though he could see it and feel it. He couldn’t hear anything – oh, he thought, recognizing he was falling unconscious just before he did.


	7. Chapter 7

They dug Pepper out about three hours later. She was relatively calm again, after several bouts of hysteria when she saw and felt the floor collapse right where Tony and Howie had been. She’d screamed herself hoarse and then tried to call her sister. Emma hadn’t picked up the phone. That didn’t help. She started to dig her way out of the rubble. Her shoes came off and she tied her jacket around her waist where her skirt was torn. She made some leeway, but cut her ankle pretty badly when she slipped trying to climb up the rubble to get to some more mobile rubble. She realized she also had a sizeable gash on her forehead that was bleeding. She used her jacket to dab at that and wrap the ankle. And then she went into hysterics. And then she did some deep breathing and attempted to call her sister again, and even dialed Tony’s number. Then she was rescued. 

Were she in her right mind, and not living through a disaster, Pepper might have been a little more tactful than to scream at the rescue workers when they said they had no idea if a small black-haired boy or a billionaire had been found. They tried to coerce and then used force to load her into an ambulance. The EMTs gave her a shot of sedative as the detective in the car took down Howie and Tony’s descriptions. He and the EMT gave her a strange look when she described Tony. 

Emma was at the hospital. Everyone was fine, she had a sprained ankle and a dislocated shoulder, but she and the kids were alive and her husband was coming to collect them. Pepper allowed the orderly to wheel her deeper into the ER to have her cuts treated. They didn’t get halfway down the hall before Pepper saw them. 

Howie was still clinging to Tony’s neck. Tony was sitting up, his face buried in Howie’s shirt, his arms wrapped around the small boy’s wracking body. Her baby was crying; she could hear him. Her gut wrenched at the sight and sound. A nurse was next to them gently tugging on Howie’s arm, making him cry louder. Tony smiled gently, strangely, and softly shook his head at the nurse. 

Pepper got out of the wheelchair and sprinted to them on bare, cut feet. Tony cut his eyes to her and his lips parted. Howie remained attached to his neck, but turned to reach out with one hand toward Pepper. 

She launched herself onto the bed with them, enveloping Howie – and incidentally Tony – in her arms. Tony let out an “oof!” when she hit them, but he wrapped his arm around her waist to keep her on the bed. 

The three of them clung to one another, Pepper sobbing first into Howie’s hair and then into Tony’s neck. He held her close, his nose in her shoulder, his other hand wrapped firmly around Howie. After a while he leaned all three of them back so he could lie down. Surprisingly, it was a very comfortable position – Pepper nestled into his side and Howie resting on his chest, his tiny perfect face snuggled in between their heads. 

Pepper stared at her little boy’s face. As soon as she had arrived, he’d calmed down enough to be tired. His eyes were blinking in that slow way that told her he was about to pass out. And sure enough, he did, his little chest rising and falling steadily as he tucked his head underneath Tony’s chin. Pepper’s eyes met her former lover’s. He was already looking at her, frowning unsteadily at the gash in her forehead. 

“Hi,” she whispered. 

His eyes warmed as they met hers. “Hi. Are you okay?”

She nodded. His arm tightened around her waist. “Good.” 

She pressed her bare feet against his leg, working his pant leg up to get to his warm bare skin. He started a little at the cold. He raised his head slightly so he could examine her more closely. He focused in on her cut feet and legs and then a hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth when he saw her ruined skirt. She didn’t care, really. He’d seen it all before. 

He dropped his head back onto the pillow next to hers and turned his face to face her. They were closer than they’d been in a couple of years. Closer than she thought she’d ever be able to stand to be to him again. But she was comfortable. He was familiar and her family was safe. Oddly, she was happy. 

“He’s yours,” she whispered. 

His eyes glinted. “I know.”

She nodded.

“You should have told me. I… would have come back. I would have quit back then. If I had known. We could have been a family. A proper family.”

“I’m sorry.” 

He peered into her wide blue eyes like he was trying to read her. Then he surprised her by lurching forward and kissing her. 

“Tony –”

“You should have told me,” he insisted. 

“I know,” Pepper sobbed, burying her face into his shoulder. “I know, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.”

“He’s mine.” 

Something about his tone made her look up. His eyes were glinting again. “You can’t have him – he’s mine. You can’t take him from me! He’s mine! He’s mine!” Her voice rose and she sat up as she spoke. She could feel the hysteria coming on again, but this time… He can’t take him from me, can he? But her rationale spoke out in the back of her mind, reminding her that this was the Tony Stark. He had the money and resources to take whatever he wanted. 

Tony sat up too, clutching Howie possessively. But he reached for her, too, unexpectedly. And pulled her face to his. It was like he was letting out all of his frustration with her in the kiss. It was hungry, and angry, and sad, and desiring. Desperate. Pepper could read so many different feelings from just that one kiss. She gave in to him, let him have her for the moment, savored the kiss. It wasn’t sweet, but it was Tony, and she loved him. Even after all the time that had passed. Even after she left him. She still loved him. Would always love him. 

“He’s ours. You’re mine, I’m yours, he’s ours,” Tony’s voice fell to a whisper. “I want us back.” All of the sudden, Tony started coughing, and the coughing turned to hacking, like he was choking on something. 

“Tony?” Pepper turned to him. 

Red was streaming down his chin, dribbling onto his shirt, onto Howie. It took Pepper a moment to understand what was happening, what the red was. By the time it clicked, a nurse was shoving Tony back, another pulling a wailing Howie away from his father, and yet another pulling Pepper off the bed. Howie was placed in her arms, screaming as they wheeled Tony away. 

The first nurse was talking urgently to Pepper, moving her backwards while they took her Tony away.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry these chapters are so short. Also maybe someday I'll finish this.


End file.
